The full paragraph from which this quotation was taken can be be viewed below (front page quote in bold):
The French constitution says, That the right of war and peace is in the nation.
Where else should it reside, but in those who are to pay the expence?
In England, this right is said to reside in a metaphor, shewn at the Tower
for sixpence or a shilling a-piece: So are the lions; and it would be a
step nearer to reason to say it resided in them, for any inanimate metaphor
is no more than a hat or a cap. We can all see the absurdity of worshipping
Aaron’s molten calf, or Nebuchadnezzar’s golden image; but
why do men continue to practise themselves the absurdities they despise
in others?
It may with reason be said, that in the manner the English nation is represented,
it signifies not where this right resides, whether in the Crown, or in
the Parliament. War is the common harvest of all those who participate
in the division and expenditure of public money, in all countries. It is
the art of conquering at home: the object of it is an increase of revenue;
and as revenue cannot be increased without taxes, a pretence must be made
for expenditures. In reviewing the history of the English government, its
wars and its taxes, a by-stander, not blinded by prejudice, nor warped
by interest, would declare, that taxes were not raised to carry on wars,
but that wars were raised to carry on taxes.
Mr. Burke, as a Member of the House of Commons, is a part of the English
Government; and though he professes himself an enemy to war, he abuses
the French Constitution, which seeks to explode it. He holds up the English
Government as a model in all its parts, to France; but he should first
know the remarks which the French make upon it. They contend, in favour
of their own, that the portion of liberty enjoyed in England, is just enough
to enslave a country by, more productively than by despotism; and that
as the real object of all despotism is revenue, a Government so formed
obtains more than it could do either by direct despotism, or in a full
state of freedom, and is therefore, on the ground of interest, opposed
to both. They account also for the readiness which always appears in such
governments for engaging in wars, by remarking on the different motives
which produce them. In despotic governments, wars are the effect of pride;
but in those governments in which they become the means of taxation, they
acquire thereby a more permanent promptitude.
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